Maybe, Maybe, Maybe

This week I am awake. This week I have more to say.

This week there is no peanut butter in sight--just a vague dancing hangover from last night, but it's manageable.

Sounds good. Let's go.

So some people wonder why cultures have myths--I wonder why not? First let's take life, simple enough as it is: the every day-type stuff, routines, general monotony. Obviously we get through it, because we're not dead yet. But what gets us through is having something to believe in. Take, for example, Christianity, probably one of the largest metanarratives of our culture. Faith in God keeps many people afloat, keeps them walking on the blah days, keeps them standing on the awful ones. And while it doesn't exactly tell of a higher power "vomiting the Moon and Stars," it can be considered a bit of a myth, can't it? For the purposes of my argument, anyway.

But that's a bit of a touchy subject, so maybe I don't want to get too far into that.

What I'm trying to say, in my incoherent-as-always sort of way, is that to know anything, you have to have been told it before. You believe what you are told, and then you work that into your life. Honestly, if one attempts to keep an open mind, it can be difficult to prove that anything we know is not all a myth. What if it is? What if everything we've ever been told is a lie? Can we really prove it all, or are we, mostly, going on faith?

Maybe myths aren't all about mystical creatures and amazing happenings that we can't fathom and need to explain away. Maybe myths are more along the lines of the ordinary, and maybe we take it for granted. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I feel like that's all I can get out today. "Maybe" must be the word of the day.

...How come I come out with all this stuff, and at the end it feels like I haven't said anything at all?? I suppose the whole point of a blog is to get down your thoughts, just into words, even if they're not coherent in the slightest. It's like one of those [crappy] first drafts. So maybe later I can use it to form something sensible. Meaningful. Until then...

I would also like to take a moment to ponder the statement that metanarratives can lead to oppression. I find this prompt interesting. Maybe (there it is again) we should decide what it is we consider "oppression" to be... Hmmm, oppression. I see... force. Being forced into things, into lines, into... stereotypes. Ah, yes, another touchy subject there--stereotypes. If an entire culture believes something fiercely enough, it must be difficult for the individual not to do so. There's that whole "mass reality" idea again. Hmm. Hmmmmm. This isn't always a good thing. The masses can't always reign supreme; individuality needs to continue to spring forth every once in awhile (okay, maybe more than every once in awhile) for society to keep functioning. Renewing itself, in a way.

So then maybe we find ourselves in a bit of a predicament... How do we fix this?

We could fill our society with these "micronarratives... a kind of storytelling that does not seek to legitimize itself through reference to a single grand narrative outside itself." Maybe these are simpler. Maybe this way, if you want to believe the myth, you can go ahead and believe the myth--but everyone else isn't necessarily going to be persecuted if they don't. Maybe. Maybe...

This pondering was not exhausted to the full extent to which it could have been exhausted.

I have yet to produce a clearly concise and insightful blog. My time will come.

Hmmmm, "Progress"...... and Peanut Butter

I'd like to open up by admitting to the fact that I've read past chapter four. I'll try to keep future spoilers out of my writing, but just in case I slip up a little bit... Well, don't hate me for it, please. I'm only human.

So now we dash into my thoughts (so far) on Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

Allow me to highlight one word: progress.

People say (who are these people? Nobody really knows. Just people) that we are progressing as a society. There must be evidence supporting that claim. Look at all of our technology! We can do anything we want--or at least, technological advancements have given us the confidence to think that we can. To suppose. To be so certain that we do it anyway, regardless of repercussions. Things like texting and internet sites keep us connected with everyone we know, or maybe keep us in touch with people we haven't seen in years and years and years.... And I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing.

No, in fact, I think it's a good thing. Keeping in touch is good. Confidence, also, is good. Confidence is necessary, I would argue, in keeping one's mind while worming and wriggling about the world. So, sure, progress. But I think maybe, once in awhile, we should stop ourselves for a moment and ponder this: What exactly is the quality of this progress?

Let's take a peek at the novel. Huxley's world is full of technological advancements that, during the time period in which he was writing, would have been inconceivable. The society of Brave New World has streamlined everything that there is to be streamlined, including the growth of population--all babies are born artificially. People are made into what they are to be before they are even born. They've even muscled their way past the whole barier of having one child at a time. "One egg, one embryo, one adult--normality. But a bokanovskified egg will bud, will proliferate, will divide. From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one gres before. Progress" (pg 6).

"Progress," they say. "Progress." What kind of progress is this, though? Figuratively it might be moving the society up that climbing slope, ever reaching out for the top.

Progress. That word keeps rattling around in my head. Bouncing off of walls. Smarting when it hits a nerve. "Progress... progress... progress..." I feel I have to repeat it over and over again, because that's the only way it'll make any sense.

So maybe the only thing I can really say so far about Brave New World is that it boggles my mind. It's one of those things you have to really ponder over, and maybe I haven't gotten the chance to carry that out to its full extent.

I am fascinated, however, by how ahead of his time Huxley seems to be. He wrote this novel decades and decades ago. And the funny thing is how a lot of the technology he describes doesn't seem too far off the mark by today's standards. Artificial insemination... This soma that Huxley's society loves so much--I keep drawing lines between it and some of today's illegal drugs. Maybe the thing that strikes me the most is how the people of Brave New World are so encouraged to give in completely to their senses, pleasures, and desires.

That makes it more realistic to me than, say, 1984. In my opinion... it makes more sense to make the people surrender to pleasure, rather than to cut it out entirely.

So, yeah, I am enjoying Brave New World. ...Is there a place for me to declare that in this blog? I think there is, and it's right there. Right where I put it.

It is late. So it also must be admitted.

This blog was completely peanut butter-driven. But I'm warming up, now--I can feel it in me bones. Expect better things to come from Marin's blog... in the near future. Until then... g'night, folks. G'night.

From MY Point of View...

So as some form of opener, I'm going to warn everyone who may be reading this (even if that turns out to be no one at all)... I have no idea where this is going. Ever have an idea and decide to go with it? Follow the current? Not care where it is that you end up? Yeah, well, I've done it before, and it's worked, so that's what I'm going with tonight.

Okay. Here goes.

In class, we've been discussing that whole debate over the history books. Everyone has been putting forth some really great, intriguing ideas--because there certainly ARE lots of great, intriguing ideas that need to be gotten out there, regarding the subject. And I'm in agreement with a lot of it. I mean, trying to, practically, rewrite history? Eliminating individuals obviously important to our development as a country, just because they stood up against the law? That's all craziness to me.

Yes, I was in agreement. Yes, I found myself nodding along a heck of a lot. But after awhile, I started questioning why this kept happening: my head kept moving and my lips kept pretty much clamped tight?

It can be a disturbing sort of revelation, discovering (maybe for the first time, maybe not) that you just don't have an opinion. These are hot topics--minority rights? Come on, people all over the place are head-over-heals to get their point of views into the forefront of the debate. It just so happens to be that I don't feel very strongly, either way.

Maybe this isn't necessarily a bad thing. When you look at it--and when it comes to, for example and as I've already pointed out, stuff like rights of minorities--I'm not in much of a place to have lots of opinion. Look at it, then look at me! I'm white--that's a majority. I'm middle-class, not rich but not exactly hurting much for money, either. White middle-class woman, whose point of views stem from her education and up-bringing. In no way do I belong to any majority. I've learned United States history from, as someone brought up in my class, the White Man's point of view, and since I don't know any different this hasn't been a bother to me.

I feel like I'm going over a word count limit, but, like I implied earlier, once I get going I get going. Even if it is about how little I have to say on a subject.

I can be sympathetic, too. Yes--I do believe that minorities have a right to be recognized in our history, for their "contributions" to society (I don't think "contributions" is a word with a small connotation at all). I'm just not ready to kill people over it, like others may be. I want everyone to have their say, I want everyone to be recognized. I want it all to be right, just, but is that ever going to happen in our society? I feel like all I have left anymore are questions.

So then I--and I'm sure, I'm positive that I'm not alone here--retreat a little big. Focus on my interests. Those things that concern me, those things that are important to me, that's what I'll fight for. That's what I'll debate over. I don't like that I'm underopinionated, but that's the way it is, and I think that's where I step down and let the people who truly care take over.

Remember Julia? Orwell's Julia, Winston's Julia. She didn't care much either. "...She only questioned the teachings of the Party when they in some way touched upon her own life" (pg 153). How selfish it sounds, how self-involved! Maybe we all turn our noses up a little bit when we think of people like that. But I know what I am, I know what I'm not. And I'll accept myself.

Doesn't mean I'm entirely pleased with it. No, in my general opinion, the American people as a whole are sliding more into that downward trend of apathy. Yes--apathy--that's what you'd call it. There are more and more Julias as the years go by, and probably simultaneously more and more issues we should care about. Do something about.

What're we going to do? Sit at home and wait till it reaches us there, that's what.

Excuse me for being a little bitter.

You always hate most in others what you see in yourself, you get me?

So what am I asking for? Less apathy? More education in the field of... current events, maybe? Less questions? Definately less questions. Unfortunately it's not easy to find a reliable source to answer them all.

Guess that's what we have to figure out ourselves.

Thank you for reading. I hope this thoroughly confused you and left you with no sense of conclusion--now you know how I feel. Welcome to my mind.